The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
--- Winston Churchill

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Education

If you want to know why our schools are hopeless, look no further than the Underground Grammarian. You can read his newsletters, published from 1977 through 1991, and a few of his booklets and essays for free at the sight. His four published books are readily available at AbeBooks for cheap: I just scored the lot for less than $15 delivered to my door. If you can't find the time to read anything else, at the very least, take a few minutes and read his essay, What to Do till the Undertaker Comes. There really isn't anything I can say that he doesn't say better.

On a completely different topic: Russia is not a place that has ever been on my list of places I'd like to live. Visit, absolutely. But even with Communism nothing but a distant memory, I still don't think I would enjoy living in a country where the president can set aside the constitution at will, military tactics are used on the citizenry, the rule of law is, at best, capriciously applied and then only to the weak and politically disenfranchised, where basic government functions are turned over to for-profit corporations who operate with no oversight or accountability, etc. I mean, what must it be like to live in such a joke of a democracy?

Ahem.

Anyway, on the plus side, Russia doesn't have Political Correctness. Here we have a Tampax commercial, Russian-style:

Now I want you to imagine the response if that commercial were to air on American television.